Why does Disney do this?

Today, after dinner, Aanya and I settled down for an evening family movie. The type that Walt Disney films excel at. Disney films where no matter the adversity faced, the good WILL always win over evil. So, it was Dumbo. Dumbo, was the movie Aanya wanted to watch. She has a Dumbo story book as well, the one I read it to her just once and thereafter she never showed interest in it. I could not understand why. Until TODAY...

The movie started off with a sweet note...storks delivering newborn offspring to various circus animals, everyone happy to receive their newborns... with beautiful Momma and baby moments. I kept on explaining the scenes to Aanya until I saw her teary eyed. She looked at me and started crying "I don't like that, Mumma". The scene she was referring, was the one where fatherless Dumbo (baby elephant) is cruelly separated from Mrs Jumbo (Mommy elephant) after she is locked up for her apparent psychosis. As I was easing her down, the follow-up scene in which she cradles Dumbo with her trunk through the bars of her cage window, was too much for Aanya to handle and we stopped the movie right there.

I don't mind admitting, there are movies that make me cry. But I am not a kid and even after crying it really doesn't affect me much. It's a far different experience to be settled in for a movie night- ready for few laughs-few 'awww' moments, few nice messages and then get hit by the scene, the one that leaves your kid upset, teary eyed and sobbing.

Today's movie venture made me realize; to young children, something bad happening to parents on screen is much more upsetting. And now I know, why Aanya never liked her Dumbo book. She didn't tell me the reason because I think she herself wasn't sure of one.

I am not going to show her the following movies too ( the ones that I have seen), not until she is old enough to understand.

• Bambi, abandoned by his father before birth, experiences hunting and subsequent shooting of his mother.
• The Lion King, Simba's father gets killed in a stampede of wildebeests and Simba finds himself guilty of that. 
• Finding Nemo, gets separated from his father and gets caught by a diver and gets captured in a dentist's fish tank.

And Sometimes I wonder, why Disney fails to honor the most sacred of bonds- that of the mother and the father to their children. Phew! Tonight's movie hardly turned out to be a family entertainment. On a lighter note, if you or your child hasn't seen Disney's Robin-Hood, please do watch. Aanya has watched it for like 4 times and loves the light hearted battel of Robin, little John and other merry men against their evil foes.